Michael James Owen Pallett (born September 7, 1979) is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist, who performs solo as Owen Pallett or, before 2010, under the name Final Fantasy. As Final Fantasy, he won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds.[1]

From the age of 3, Pallett studied classical violin, and composed his first piece at age 13. A notable early composition includes some of the music for the game Traffic Department 2192; he moved on to scoring films, to composing two operas while in university. Apart from the indie music scene, he has had commissions from the Barbican, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada, Bang on a Can, Ecstatic Music Festival, the Vancouver CBC Orchestra, and Fine Young Classicals.

On his Final Fantasy releases, Pallett has collaborated with Leon Taheny, who is credited as drummer and engineer. Following the release of Heartland, Pallett has toured with guitarist/percussionist Thomas Gill[2] and more recently with his former collaborators in Les Mouches, Rob Gordon and Matt Smith.[3][4]

Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a loop pedal. Pallett uses Max/MSP and SooperLooper to do multi-phonic looping, which sends his violin signal to amplifiers across the stage.[5]

Career

Solo work

The name Final Fantasy, under which Pallett recorded prior to the release of Heartland, was a tribute to the well-known video game series, although he said that it is not one of his top twenty favorite games.[6]

Final Fantasy performing in 2005.

Pallett's debut album, Has a Good Home,[7] was released on February 12, 2005, by the Blocks Recording Club, a cooperative, Toronto-based record label of which he is a founding member. "An Arrow in the Side of Final Fantasy" borrows the music from the Space Zone's final level in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. "Adventure.exe" from this album was used in a series of 2006 commercials by Orange in the United Kingdom.[8] Pallett did not intend to sell the song for this purpose, but its use was authorized due to an alleged miscommunication with his record label, Tomlab. All of Pallett's income from this use is donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Pallett's second album, He Poos Clouds, was released in June 2006, though the video,[9] directed by Jesse Ewles, was released on March 1, 2006. The album consists entirely of string quartet arrangements. Eight of the ten songs are about each of the schools of magic as described in the rules to the Dungeons & Dragonsfantasyrole-playing game. The album was named winner of the 2006 Polaris Music Prize. Uncomfortable with receiving a prize sponsored by a mobile phone conglomerate, Pallett gave the money away to bands he liked who needed financial assistance.[]

On November 11, 2006, Pallett posted to a fan forum to announce a new album, tentatively titled Heartland. Subsequently, on July 9, 2007 on the CBC Radio One program Q, Pallett said that the album would be released no earlier than mid 2008. In the same interview he confirmed that it would be titled Heartland, and that it was an album about nothingness.

In October 2007 Final Fantasy released a vinyl 7" on Tomlab's Alphabet Single series ( The Letter "X" ). The two tracks on "X", recorded in Montreal with Zach Condon, of the band Beirut; predate the album He Poos Clouds. The tracks - "Hey Dad" and "What Do You Think Will Happen Next?" are both played regularly at live shows. The song "Hey Dad" contains a melody borrowed from the Nintendo video game "Super Mario Bros. 3"; specifically it is the music from the "Coin Heaven" bonus/hidden stages. Also, the song is quite similar in melody, lyrics and tone to another of Pallett's songs - "->".

In Fall 2008, Pallett released two EPs. The first one, Spectrum, 14th Century, was a collaboration with Beirut. The second EP, Plays To Please, found Pallett paying homage to fellow Torontonian Alex Lukashevsky, his group Deep Dark United, and his unique personality. On it, six Lukashevsky originals were reconfigured for a 35-piece big band, the Toronto-based St. Kitts Orchestra (which includes Drumheller's Nick Fraser, Paul Mathew of the Hidden Cameras, and a whistling Andrew Bird, among others).[11]

On December 18, 2009, Pallett announced "I am voluntarily retiring my band name" and that Heartland "will be issued under my own name, Owen Pallett" to "definitively distinguish my music from Square Enix's games".[12] The album was released on Domino Records on January 12, 2010. It was mixed by New York producer Rusty Santos.[13] Also he played Primavera Sound Festival 2010.[14] In August 2010, Pallett announced the release of a four track EP entitled A Swedish Love Story on September 28 via Domino.

On November 12, 2012, Pallett tweeted that he had been working on a new album called In Conflict.[15] For several personal reasons, Pallett delayed the intended fall 2013 release date for his fourth full-length album, ultimately released May 27, 2014.[16][17]

On October 17, Pallett posted on his Twitter page that he had just completed "10 days on the best album I've ever had the pleasure of working on".[21] This was ten days after a previous comment suggesting he was in the studio with Arcade Fire,[22] who were working on their 2010 album The Suburbs at the time. It later received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.[23]

Personal life

Pallett was born in Mississauga, Ontario and grew up in Milton.[29] He received an Honours Bachelor of Music for Composition from the University of Toronto in 2002.[30]

Pallett believes his work is implicitly influenced by his sexuality, saying, "As far as whether the music I make is gay or queer, yeah, it comes from the fact that I'm gay, but that doesn't mean I'm making music about it."[31]

Patrick Borjal, Pallett's boyfriend, began working as his manager in 2006, and formed the management company Boyfriend Management.[32]

In 2014, Pallett penned an open letter weighing in on the Jian Ghomeshi abuse scandal.[33]